The Distributional Consequences of Public School Choice
研究公立学校选择如何影响学校质量分布和住房价格，发现选择制度压缩了学校质量差距，但最低收入居民可能并未受益。
School choice systems aspire to delink residential location and school assignments by allowing children to apply to schools outside of their neighborhood. However, choice programs also affect incentives to live in certain neighborhoods, and this feedback may undermine the goals of choice. We investigate this possibility by developing a model of public school and residential choice. School choice narrows the range between the highest and lowest quality schools compared to neighborhood assignment rules, and these changes in school quality are capitalized into equilibrium housing prices. This compressed distribution generates an ends-against-the-middle trade-off with school choice compared to neighborhood assignment. Paradoxically, even when choice results in improvement in the lowest-performing schools, the lowest type residents need not benefit.